The Newsroom: End of Season One

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

This whole Maggie-Jim thing kills me. So does the Will-Mac thing, of course, but not nearly as much. They should know better. Maggie is just wasting away her life with Don and doesn't seem to care. You could argue that I'm wasting away hours of my life on this blog, of course, but I'd disagree. Anyway, looking at the non-relationship aspects of these final two episodes in the first season, I think that they power-packed a lot of stuff in there, but it wasn't really interesting enough, in my opinion. Yeah, there's no getting around Casey Anthony (though I was surprised that was so recent... feels like a few years ago, doesn't it?), but at least the show was able to forge a little bit in the way of discussing the voter fraud issues and the craze that the Tea Partiers have caused! On the whole, however, too much drama for anything of substance to actually shine. And it's not even the semi-interesting drama, like Neal's trolling... it's ridiculous relationship madness. Boo. Hiss. #EPICFAIL

The Newsroom "The Blackout: Part II Mock Debate" (S01E09): The studio is without power and they're worried that it won't be back by the time they need to go on, so Mac gives a peptalk about doing the show in the street. Everyone gets on board with inspiration, only for the power to return and kill the mood. Still, the show goes well, though Will smokes when the pre-tape rolls.

Neal is still trying to get the troll thing going, and the others keep working on mock debates. Neal comes up with a website and an angle and talks to Sloan about how he took it to the point that the thread was frozen by a moderator. [not gonna lie... I'm kinda furious that Neal felt the need to troll at all, regardless of the cause. maybe I've spent too many thousands of hours on the internet, but I loathe trolls.] He does, however, figure out the online alias of the person who initially threatened Will. [theoretically, this could be juicy. However, it's not. Probably because there's not enough time to flesh this out right now.]

Maggie's roommate, Lisa, went to high school with Casey Anthony, so everyone wants her on the show, with Jim and Maggie even invading Lisa's place of employment to harass her until she agrees. [again, I was appalled that they would do that. The girl is WORKING!] Jim also keeps trying to get a second first-date with her, but she keeps fighting it. [which is a waste of time, because we all know that the girl is going to give in... as women are weak on this show and all.] Maggie tries to help out Lisa by getting her some notes, even though they shouldn't tell guests what to say. [ETHICS BREACH, Y'ALL!] Lisa takes the discussion down an abortion route, but Will does his best to steer it back to what Casey was like as a teenager. That night, someone spray-paints "Baby Killer" on the window of the apartment and throws a brick through their window. [no comment.] Later, Don pours out his heart to Maggie. [and I get mad.] 

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The debate folks arrive to see if News Night is a worthy host, and the gang stages their innovative, witness-stand-type debate. One guy accepts the format but another isn't a fan, thinking it'll make the candidates look like idiots. [which is precisely why I am in favor of it, actually.] Plus, they don't want Mac to produce (claiming that she's changed Will), so Will declares game over. Before they leave, however, they offer a partial to Don and a full to Sloan, both turn him down, and that's the end of that. [I didn't understand why they'd throw Don a bone at all... and Sloan doesn't even need to audition what she'd do??]

Mac realizes that everything has changed and that they shouldn't have covered Casey Anthony and Anthony Wiener. Plus, she's angry that Will gave up on the debate when the guy insulted her. [whine, whine, whine.] Will says that they will throw out the run-down and cover the debt ceiling and do a good show again, which they do. [who stands around quoting random poems at work? I mean, when I was a Teaching Assistant we'd quote plays, but that's different. LoL.] 

The Newsroom "The Greater Fool" (S01E10): [talk about a time warp! this episode killed me with its back-and-forth jumping!] The main date to know is Monday, August 8th, 2011, when the credit rating of the US treasury was lowered for the first time ever.

Eight days earlier, Mac and the bodyguard find Will passed out in the bathroom of his apartment. At the hospital, they learn he probably took too many anti-depressants. [I felt bad for Mac in that she wasn't aware of what was going on with Will.]

Seven days earlier, as the DOW was falling, Mac is very angry at Will for taking the medication and being upset over some bad press. In a nutshell, Brian's article, two weeks earlier, sucked. Will doesn't even want to return to the show, but Mac has a bigger problem - Nina is considering doing a story on the fact that Will did a show high once. Mac tells her it's not true, but Nina says that once a second source comes out, she'll have to write the story. Everyone wonders who the first source is, and Charlie thinks it's high time he get the proof that TMI is hacking. After threatening Hancock for not being reliable and refusing to run a story on the NSA until he sees the TMI info, he's left in the dark anyway.

Five days earlier, Sloan went to lunch and received a job offer, which she's inclined to accept, and only Don knows. [why Don?] Sloan says that she'll leave in three days, and Don asks her for advice on how to get Maggie to move in with him. [...and my blood begins to boil in fear that Maggie would actually do such a thing! oh, and don't worry, Sloan decides to stay.] She tells him not to commit to someone he doesn't love... then admits that she has a thing for him. [ewwwww!] Over at the hospital, Mac is angry at Jim for not making a move on Maggie two months ago. [Camelot reference! weird about how Mac was threatening Jim that he shouldn't end up like she and Will.] Back at the office, Jim tells Charlie that Hancock's body was found in the river. [too bad. I didn't mind him as a character.]

Four days earlier, Neal wants to keep trying to smoke out Will's threatener, and Charlie reluctantly decides to allow him to do so. Charlie then receives a package from "The East River," tears it open, and heads to the hospital with Mac. Will's nurse is the great-niece of Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old Tennessee native who will be denied the right to vote for the first time in her life. Will's nurse wants the problem of voter IDs on the news. Then, the topic changes, as Will talks about having left a message for Mac when he was high - but she never heard it... it seems that TMI hacked Mac's phone and deleted it before she could hear it. [o.m.g. could you believe if that happened to YOU??] Will is invigorated after they realize this and leaves the hospital, returning to work early, excited to bring a lot of light to the voting problem. See, without a driver's license or a passport, 11% of the country, or 20 million people, won't be able to vote because they have no government-issues identification. The reasoning behind it is "voter fraud," but, in reality, that isn't a big deal. Out of 196,000,000 votes, 86 were found to be fraudulent. [now, by the way, we're back to the "present day."] Will then moves into the controversy over whether the country was founded as a Christian nation. The next thing you know, he's attacking the Tea Party, or the American Taliban, as he calls it.

Leona asks Will if he was high on the air, he admits it, and Charlie asks how she knows. Without answering, she fires Will... and when Charlie mentions the hacking, Reese fires Mac. Leona asks Reese about the hacking order, and he denies it until Charlie bluffs that he has copies of orders to hack the phones of Mac, Casey Anthony's lawyers, Howard Stern, and others. [we don't actually find out that Charlie was bluffing until later, though... the package from the East River contained a Beef Stew recipe Hancock wanted to share with Charlie.] Charlie tells Leona to stand up for what's right, and she un-fires everyone.

[and now it's time for major office drama. get ready.] Mac wants to know what the rest of Will's message was, but he won't say... she, on the other hand, admits that she was in the audience at Northwestern. Speaking of that time in history, the girl who asked him, "What makes America the best country in the world?" is now an intern! [don't even get me started!] After Maggie and Lisa get into a small argument over whom Jim wants to date, Maggie winds up airing her grievances to the tourists on a Sex and the City tour bus, not knowing that Jim, trying to impress Lisa, is aboard. Jim winds up running after her, kissing her, and the two ponder their future. [which ain't gonna work out any time soon, guys!] Maggie goes to break up with Don, but he has lit candles all over his apartment and asks her to move in with him. [um, perfect timing much?] He says that he wants to make the relationship work, and she seems to buy it. Lisa and Jim make up, though he has to lie to her and say he wasn't going after Maggie. [grrrr! anger!!!]

And, fun facts about Will: he's pro-life and a RINO - Republican in Name Only. He has also received 100 new death threats. His bodyguard makes $1700/week. [that's IT??]